Rogue, Searching For The Real Sarah Palin, Joe McGinniss's much-talked about new book will hit shelves later this week.

In the meantime it is hitting media desks around the city.

We got a copy today.

You will recall that in May 2010 McGinniss, a longtime political journalist who perhaps is best known for writing the 1969 book The Selling of the President 1968, moved in next door to the Palins.

Shortly after McGinniss moved in and introduced himself to Todd, Sarah essentially accused him on her Facebook page of peeping on daughter Piper. Cue media firestorm. Later that year, McGinniss's presence factored heavily into the premiere of 'Sarah Palin's Alaska' for the same reason.

McGinniss uses this experience to frame the book, and ostensibly paint himself as the latest victim of the Palin's violent paranoia. So much so he can't seem to have an encounter with a single resident of Alaska without being offered a gun for protection.

And violently paranoid is certainly the best way to describe the Palin that McGinniss portrays in this book.

The result is a picture of a small town woman desperate for a larger stage (it's admittedly a little heartbreaking to read of 28-year-old Sarah Palin, already a mother of three, secretly driving all the way to Anchorage to see Ivana Trump shill for her new perfume line just to get a real life glimpse of "glamour") who will stop at nothing to get the attention she feels she deserves (think the Nicole Kidman in To Die For except without the murder).

The tactics she employs to become mayor of Wasilla are the exact same the world has become familiar with since her rise to Vice Presidential candidate. Essentially, at least according to McGinniss, the Sarah Palin we know is simply Wasilla Sarah writ large.

Most of the book, however, is essentially dressed up small town gossip. Well-dressed! McGinniss is a good writer and the book is a compelling read. But gossip nonetheless. Suffice to say, McGinniss, who apparently spoke to every small town resident who ever had an interaction with the Palins ever, is not shy about printing anonymously sourced gossip, or even sourced gossip!

And while much of it backs up the paranoid, mean-spirited Sarah Palin we've all become familiar with, it also succeeds in painting McGinniss as being just as attention hungry and just as media-savvy as his subject.

To that end it's worth noting this book comes with neither an index nor chapter headings meaning that it's impossible to flip to names or juicy bits. One must read the entire thing. And I did.